


a line we drew in the array

by brella



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: First Kiss, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Third Year Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-12 23:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16005323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/brella
Summary: Shouyou is in love with Kageyama. There’s just no getting around it, although he’s tried. He has been in love with him for two years, eight months, and three weeks, and every single day in that timeframe has been, on average, the most miserable day of his life.—Hinata and Kageyama, a misunderstanding, and the uncertain future. (For Kagehina Day.)





	a line we drew in the array

**Author's Note:**

> This was SUPPOSED to be finished for Kagehina day, but unfortunately I am a complete freak who cannot just write a story where one thing happens and everyone goes home without issue, so here we are five days later with yet another Ridiculous Epic About How Two Haikyuu Characters Just Have A Lot Of Feelings, something I relate to as a person who watches _Haikyuu_. 
> 
> For maximum mood, please give a listen to [the Chihayafuru movie soundtrack](https://youtu.be/2lz1TuhNoWA?t=27m14s). I have used my immense hacking powers to calibrate the link so that it starts at the appropriate time to hopefully carry you through the entire fic with relatively appropriate background music, depending on your reading speed. 
> 
> Thanks to Lily (astrid_fischer), Maria (mumblingmaria), Emily (doyouprincess), Ellaine, and Verit for the ultra-helpful beta and for reining me in when necessary (frequently). Special thanks also to my roommate Shawn, who kindly explained the college entrance exam process in Japan to me. I told him that I would dedicate this to him to repay him, and now I am. This is dedicated to Shawn.
> 
> Note that AO3 tragically does not support emoji, something I didn't realize until I got fifty error messages while trying to post this. The cow emoji and lizard emoji are there... in your heart. 
> 
> P.S. Tina yes they use their words in this fic. 
> 
> I love these complete morons. These lovable dunderheads. These utter nincompoops. They're good.

Shouyou has been standing in front of the faucet for fifteen minutes, hands gripping the edges of the sink. He is trying to intimidate the face in the mirror into looking less terrified, with very little success.

“Be brave,” he says, staring into his own wide eyes, mouth crumpled. As if arguing with him, his stomach gives a vicious, gurgling cramp. He slaps a hand over it, bowing his head and glaring. “Shhh.”

There’s a muffled thump on the other side of the bathroom door. When it swings open, he’s expecting, statistically, to see the most terrifying player on one of the teams in their block, or maybe Yamaguchi, who always gets sent to coax him onto the court before a game. Instead, when he straightens up and turns his head, he sees Kageyama.

“Oi,” Kageyama grunts. Shouyou has always thought the orange version of their uniform suits him best. It makes him harder to look away from. “It’s almost time.”

Shouyou mumbles wordlessly in response, hunching his shoulders and turning back to the mirror. Kageyama huffs, sneakers squeaking on the tile when he steps forward and lets the door fall closed behind him.

“How much longer?” Shouyou asks.

“Five minutes,” Kageyama says.

“No, how—” Shouyou bites his lip to stop himself. The question had been larger and infinitely more vulnerable than that, and he isn’t sure he wants to hear the answer in Kageyama’s voice yet.

“Hurry up,” Kageyama tells him. “Yamaguchi wants you to practice serves before we start.”

“Geh,” Shouyou whines. “Tell Yamaguchi it isn’t right for captains to be so mean.”

“Yamaguchi isn’t mean,” Kageyama says, as blunt as ever. “You’re just lazy.”

“Eh?! Is that any way to speak to your ace?!”

Kageyama rolls his eyes spectacularly. Shouyou’s humble-brags—full-brags—about his _hard-earned position_ as the _ace of Karasuno_ tend to evoke that reaction from him, rather than the appropriate amount of deference or awe. He hasn’t made a habit out of it, or anything, the bragging—something his first-year self would scarcely have been able to imagine—confident enough in the collective strength of his teammates, in the knowledge that six who are strong are stronger, that no single player is an ace alone, blah blah blah—but he can’t help but remind Kageyama every now and again.

“Get over yourself,” Kageyama says, and then, before Shouyou can squawk out another protest, he resolutely extends his arm, hand gripped into a fist at the end of it. The same familiar motion, the same unassailable promise. “Hinata—”

Shouyou beams, throwing up his own arm to mirror him, and crows, “As long as I have you, I’m invincible!”

Kageyama’s features comfortably rise over a flushed, fiery grin.

There is a fluttering, living thing in Shouyou’s chest these days, nestled in the same place that loves volleyball and cold mornings and mango Calpico, and it lives for that expression. It roars to life now, too.

“Good boy,” Kageyama says, which makes Shouyou’s stomach flip like an airborne pancake. When they walk side-by-side onto the court a few moments later, the crowd erupts into cheers.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Shouyou is in love with Kageyama. There’s just no getting around it, although he’s tried. He has been in love with him for two years, eight months, and three weeks, and every single day in that timeframe has been, on average, the most miserable day of his life.

He’s in love with Kageyama because of the way Kageyama smiles at him sometimes, sincere and fierce and proud. He’s in love with Kageyama’s hair and talent and fumbling, accidental kindness. He’s in love with the glint to Kageyama’s eyes just before he tosses a ball to him, half-astonished by his own actions, as though Shouyou is beckoning him and his body and heart follow before his mind can. He’s in love with the way Kageyama pronounces the word _invincible_ , with the way he holds his pens, with his single-minded passion and bullheaded devotion to the things and the people he deems worthwhile. He’s in love with the fact that Kageyama never, ever does anything halfway—not even making Shouyou fall in love with him.

Kageyama doesn’t _know_ , or anything. Despite Tsukishima’s near-constant statements to the contrary, Shouyou is not _that_ stupid. That said, much of Shouyou’s misery stems from Kageyama’s incognizance, and from the fact that he can never, in a million, quadrillion years, tell him—so it’s kind of a lose-lose situation. But it’s gotten easier to make peace with over time.

He guards it as he has never guarded anything in his life. No one knows except Yachi, who he’d told first, and Kenma, who he’d told second, and Yamaguchi, who he’d told third. And Tsukishima, who claimed to have already known. And Sugawara and Daichi and Asahi, and Ennoshita, and Shimizu ( _that_ had been among the most humiliating moments of Shouyou’s life). And Aone from Dateko and Goshiki from Shiratorizawa and Kunimi from Aoba Johsai. And Inuoka, obviously. So like. Barely anyone.

He can pinpoint the exact moment that it happened, or at least happened in a way stark enough for him to perceive it. It isn’t especially dramatic.

The night that they won Nationals in their first year, they were up until 4 AM in either Tanaka’s or Daichi’s hotel room. The adrenaline and delirium and triumph and disbelief were thrumming in the air, electric, utterly irrepressible, and it was all at once stifling and exhilarating. It had taken a while for anyone to calm down enough to form sentences; the vast majority of them had been, more or less, intermittently exchanging impassioned gibberish, reenacting their best receives and blocks and serves—Nishinoya had cleared the tatami floor to perform one of his and had only been saved from concussing himself on the television stand by Shimizu’s quick reflexes.

At some point, Yamaguchi had volunteered to go to the convenience store around the corner for celebratory junk food, and had needled Tsukishima into joining him, and they had returned laden with plastic bags to a roaring chorus of appreciation.

Over the course of the night, hyped up on soda and candy, nearly all of them were almost constantly screaming, even if it was just to ask to use the bathroom. Sugawara and Nishinoya and Asahi were crying, collecting themselves, crying again. Daichi was crying, too, arms flung around whoever’s shoulders he could reach, eyes red-rimmed, voice worn and rasping from overuse. Even Kageyama had seemed a touch more emotional than usual, smiling more consistently than Shouyou had ever observed, practically flaring when Daichi had clapped him on the back and thanked him for his great work.

“Yes!” he kept saying, nodding his head vigorously, clinging to his bottle of chocolate milk (Shouyou had not known where Tsukishima and Yamaguchi could have possibly found a _bottle_ of it in Tokyo in the middle of the night). “Thank you very much! You—were also, uh—very goof—gourd—good!”

And Shouyou had been briefly convinced, sitting on the floor between Yamaguchi and Yachi, noisily cheering on Tanaka and Nishinoya’s antics, trying to tearfully hug Tsukishima and being repeatedly rebuffed, that this was the happiest he had ever been and maybe would ever be. But—

Despite everything, the hunger still remained. He was only half-content to do things this way, to revel in a victory instead of striving always, always for more. He had tried to let it count; he really had. Watching all of his senpai go to pieces over it, over the glorious actualization of all of their toiling and dreaming—watching their ecstasy eclipse the entire room, maybe even the entire town, just for that one night, just long enough that the earth might slow its spin for them to let it last a little longer—it was the closest he’d ever come to feeling satiated.

His arms no longer bruise so easily. They hardly bruise at all, and sometimes he misses the sight, such vivid proof of what he had worked for, something that he could show off just by rolling up his sleeve. The sting on his palm was all he had to remember what it had been like under those blazing lights, with his team, able to believe, if only for an instant, that they might not have won if he had not been there.

On the floor, in the crowded hotel room, he set that burning palm over his heart and curled his fingers into the fabric of his shirt and counted the stubborn beats through the threads: _I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive_.

Eventually, Ukai knocked on the door and ordered them to disperse, not only because their bus would be leaving at 7:00 AM, which was, in case they had not noticed, in exactly three hours, but also because he did not want to be the responsible party should their antics incur noise complaints. Takeda helped usher them to their respective rooms, did roll call, made sure they had triple-checked their rooms for anything they might have forgotten—going through the motions, the same as ever, as if this had been any other match on any other day. In its own gentle, considerate way, it had eased them back down to earth.

By the time everything was in order, the bus had already arrived, and none of them had gotten any sleep.

When they all traipsed outside to board the bus, the last remnants of their adrenaline receding into exhaustion, Ukai turned to them and said that they had better not slack off on practice just because they’d gone and won Nationals or something, and then winked at them. He asked Takeda if he had anything he wanted to say, and they had all expected something grandiose and poetic, but Takeda only thought for a moment, his hands in the pockets of his sweater, and then lifted his head, exhaled, and told them, in a voice softened with pride, that they did so well today; they really, truly, did well.

Shouyou watched the third-years thank him, their faces wrenched with emotion; he watched the second-years bow their heads, clench their fists, and do the same. His eyes roved over the scene before him, the beaming faces, the half-embraces, all of them clustered together under the faint blue dawn—and landed, in due and inevitable course, on Kageyama.

Kageyama was crying, too.

Shouyou’s heart surged, and suddenly he was overcome by a fierce and adamant instinct to rush over and hug him—as he had on the court, what seemed like only moments ago, both of them doubled-over and clinging to each other and wailing wordlessly—but he stayed where he was, unable to move.

Kageyama noticed him watching almost instantaneously. He met Shouyou’s gaze head-on.

“Hinata,” Kageyama said to him in a rough, thick voice.

“W-What?” Shouyou narrowed his eyes, bracing his feet on the asphalt just in case this would be a lead-in to Kageyama lunging over to punish him for some shoddy receive or missed spike.

Kageyama opened his mouth, then closed it. Shouyou had watched as it creased, mesmerized, and unconsciously licked his lips. Someone had bumped into him as they walked onto the bus. Narita, maybe.

“You,” Kageyama said, and inhaled deeply as if preparing to dive underwater. “You were amazing.”

 _Ah_ , Shouyou had thought, faintly, his hand going slack around the strap of his duffel bag. Right then, once and for all, without hope or want of termination, every part of him had become Kageyama’s.

It probably hadn’t even meant much to Kageyama—a compliment in the heat of the moment, nothing more—but to Shouyou, it had meant… everything. He had walked his bike down the road under the emerging stars the evening they’d gotten home, still in his gym clothes, and repeated it to himself, over and over, in a soft, reverential whisper: _Hinata. You were amazing. You were amazing, Hinata, Hinata, you were amazing_.

Their second year had come. (They lost Nationals to Fukurodani.) Their third year, too, before Shouyou could even lift a hand to greet it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He and Kageyama grow in parallel. They become inextricable: Hinata-and-Kageyama, Kageyama-and-Hinata. The first to open the gym and the last to leave it. The score of their constant, unerring, headlong race, equally defiant and equally foolish, ceases to matter.

Every morning, one way or another, Shouyou always scales the mountain, and every morning, Kageyama is waiting at the bottom with his hands in his pockets. He had been waiting on this morning, too; before the bus, before the faucet, before the question Shouyou couldn’t bear to voice. As thoughtless as ever, Shouyou had run to meet him.

(Figuratively, of course. What had really happened was that he released the brakes on his bike, stuck his legs out, and whizzed down the hill past Kageyama with a cry of, “Too slow, Stupid Kageyama!”, chortling at the sound of Kageyama bellowing in his wake as he chased him all the way to the school gates.)

Now, in their match against Wakunan, against Takeru’s nimble, nigh-indomitable successor, the gym lights catch in Kageyama’s irises and turn them blue, as blue as the sky after a storm, and the sweat gathering in his clavicle shimmers, and he licks his lips when he eases into a tossing position.

At the barest twitch of his arm, Shouyou is already there. Kageyama doesn’t even have to call out his name. He never has.

Shouyou does what he has always done with Kageyama to guide him—he claws his way toward the sun.

He no longer covets that view from the top as he once had. More than anything, what he looks forward to every time, now, is the view of Kageyama’s face when he comes back down: ruddy and bright and beaming.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Where do you think you’ll go, Kageyama?”

Shouyou is balancing a pencil horizontally on his nose and has been doing so for half of the lunch break, which is a new record. He’s been holding a pretty weird position at his desk to make this possible, but he figures it’s worth it. There aren’t many better things to do on a rainy day like this.

Kageyama freezes halfway through standing from his seat. Apparently, because he has no taste, this phenomenal performance on Shouyou’s part has gotten boring, and he is no longer impressed.

Not for the first time, Shouyou wishes they could be in the same class as Yachi and Yamaguchi (and, by unfortunate extension, Tsukishima), who would no doubt give him the respect he deserves. Instead, they are geniuses, or whatever, so they are still in the class for geniuses, and always do their homework together, and _blah_.

“Uh,” Kageyama says with a note of alarm, “the can?”

“Say ‘bathroom,’ Kageyama; jeez,” Shouyou scolds the ceiling. “I meant to school.”

“To school?” Kageyama repeats. “Dumbass? I go to school here?”

“Ugh, next year!” Shouyou groans. “To university! Stupid Kageyama! Where are you gonna go?!”

It shatters the ambient buzz of conversations among their classmates for an instant, and Shouyou can feel his face going hot. Kageyama isn’t saying anything. Shouyou wants to lift his head and get a look at his face, but he also wants to break the world record for longest-time-someone-has-balanced-a-pencil-on-their-nose, so he remains still.

“I—” Kageyama halts. Coughs. Starts again, woodenly. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t _know_? They handed out career planning forms last week; did you lose yours?”

“No,” Kageyama barks, which means that he did. “Like _you_ didn’t lose _yours_.”

“I totally didn’t,” Shouyou says confidently, which means that he did. He may have let Natsu use it to make a jumping frog. “I gave it to sensei yesterday.”

“Liar,” Kageyama says. “Your sister probably made it into a crane.”

Shouyou shivers. Why must Kageyama know everything about his life, down to his preferred sleeping position and what his mom always makes him for breakfast? Who gave him permission? When did this _happen_?

“Where are _you_ gonna go?” Kageyama asks.

Shouyou stalls, staring at the fluorescent light overhead. He’s been idly thinking Juntendo since his second year, but it isn’t a definite dream, or anything—not like Karasuno had been. And anyway, he’d always just figured—

“I-I don’t know, either,” he stammers, which is certainly better than saying, _I’m going to go wherever you go_. The pencil wobbles a little and he goes cross-eyed staring at it. “Now shut up; I’m trying to concentrate.”

Kageyama bristles; he can sense it. “You’re the one who _asked_ me about it, dumbass!”

“I take it back, then!” Shouyou snaps, suddenly annoyed, though he doesn’t know why. “Forget I said anything! Go to the stupid bathroom!”

“Fine!” Kageyama shouts, and stomps away, slamming the sliding door shut behind him with a wall-shaking rattle.

Shouyou can feel everyone staring at him, but he pretends not to notice, engrossed by his pencil. What are they expecting him to do, go after Kageyama or something? Beg for forgiveness? He’ll just buy him a milk carton later. Kageyama’s ornery moods are as inconstant as a cat’s. No offense to Kenma.

“I’m going to Juntendo,” he announces to no one in particular, and then drops the pencil.

Kageyama returns from the bathroom only seconds before the bell signaling the end of the lunch period. He drops sullenly into his desk at the front of the classroom and does not look back at Shouyou for the rest of the afternoon.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Tsukishima’s going to Chuo,” Kageyama says very suddenly at practice. Shouyou trips and misses his spike, crashing spectacularly to the floor as the ball sails over the net.

“Ow!” he snaps, pointedly, so that Kageyama will feel bad.

It doesn’t seem to work. Kageyama is staring at the wall, brow crumpled, deep in thought.

“Tsukishima at Chudai, huh?” Shouyou settles for saying, clambering to his feet and gingerly prodding his butt to check for serious damage. “I mean, obviously. Chuo’s for super smart people, isn’t it, and Tsukishima’s—”

“To play volleyball,” Kageyama says. Shouyou pauses at his tone—like he’s rehearsing lines for a play he doesn’t want to be in. “Tsukishima’s going to play volleyball for Chuo.”

“What’s all this stuff about Tsukishima all of a sudden?” Shouyou exclaims, ducking under the net to retrieve the ball. “Who cares where he—”

“Should I go to Chuo?” Kageyama asks, turning his head to meet Shouyou’s eyes with an alarmingly serious expression. (Well, more than usual.)

Shouyou spins back around so fast that he almost gets tangled in the net. “ _Hah_?!”

“Should we...?” Kageyama points to himself, and then to Shouyou, looking increasingly distraught.

“Should the two of you go to Chuo?”

Tsukishima’s voice materializes at Shouyou’s back, and Shouyou yelps, darting his hands up to fend off a possible attack. Tsukishima looms over him with a maddening smirk on his face, one hand braced on his hip. His glasses are hanging on their strap around his neck; the absence of them makes his face look eerily… non-Tsukishima-ish.

“That’s funny.” He lets out a laugh that sounds, to Shouyou, very much like a villainous rich girl’s in a shoujo anime. “You’re funny.”

“I never even _said_ I wanted to go to Chuo!” Shouyou snaps. “I’m going to Juntendo!”

“You’re going _where_?!” Kageyama yells.

Tsukishima’s smirk doesn’t disappear—it hardly ever does—but it abates. “Juntendo? Never heard of them.”

“They won All Japan Intercollegiate in 2010!” Shouyou explains. Tsukishima puts his glasses back on while he babbles, precisely adjusting the strap. “They’d never won before and they haven’t won since! Everyone was super surprised when they beat Chuo—it was totally unexpected. I think that’s super cool! Plus I like their blue uniform!”

The words continue to rush from him as if let loose by a crumbling dam, too fast, too detailed to be the whole truth.

“I’m gonna try for the Sakura Campus because that’s where they have the School of Health and Sports Science. I kinda want to be a coach! Or maybe a teacher. Or both! After I win the Olympics.”

Tsukishima is giving him that heavy, aloof-but-subtly-contemplative stare, one that Shouyou now knows better than to fidget too much under.

Eventually, he says, with a note of vague surprise, “You’ve thought about this a lot, huh?”

“Yep!” Shouyou declares, both pleased that his hard work has been acknowledged and that Tsukishima’s compliment didn’t have any snide footnotes about how hard that must be for him, you know, thinking. “Congratulations on getting into Chuo, Tsukki. We’re gonna be _rivals_!” That leaves a funny taste in his mouth, but he keeps going. “I won’t lose to you!”

“I didn’t get in yet,” Tsukishima tells him slowly, like he’s explaining colors to a toddler. “Entrance exams aren’t until January.”

“You will,” Shouyou says confidently before he can think on it. “Do your best!”

“Th—” Tsukishima looks flummoxed. His ears have gone pink. Genuine displays of encouragement tend to have that effect on him. “Thanks.”

Only then does Shouyou realize that Kageyama hasn’t butted in for this whole exchange. As Yamaguchi jogs up to Tsukishima carrying water bottles, Shouyou turns back to the net with his mouth half-open around a question—but Kageyama is not there anymore.

Shouyou jerks his head up, eyes frantically scanning the gym, before catching on Kageyama’s back, hunched over the doorstep. He’s clumsily pulling on his shoes.

“Kageyama?” Shouyou calls out, eyebrows knitting together, but Kageyama doesn’t turn around.

“I have a headache. I’m going home,” Kageyama announces gruffly, and he doesn’t even wait for Yamaguchi or Ukai to approve of this before he’s stormed out the door and into the rain without a jacket.

“What did I say?” Shouyou asks incredulously, whirling on Yamaguchi because Yamaguchi is always good at explaining these kinds of things—but Yamaguchi is giving the floorboards a sad, weary look, fingers tightening incrementally around the neck of his water bottle.

Tsukishima finishes watching Kageyama go and then meets Shouyou’s eyes, looking as though he understands perfectly well what just happened, which infuriates Shouyou, because he suddenly seems to be the only person in the entire gym who doesn’t.

“Let’s get back to work,” Yamaguchi says before Ukai can (in a no doubt much scarier voice).

Shouyou perfunctorily joins the chorus of “ _yes, Captain_ ,” eyes still fixed on the vacant doorway. In the remaining hour before the club disperses for the day, he misses every single one of his serves.

Yamaguchi doesn’t scold him for it, which somehow makes it worse.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _[10:08 PM]_  
_to: Kageyama_ 🐮  
_hows ur head_

 

 _[10:32 PM]_  
_to: Kageyama_ 🐮  
_｢_ _(_ _ﾟﾍﾟ_ _) did u die_

 

 _[11:01 PM]_  
_to: Kageyama_ 🐮  
_if u dont answer im gonna tell tsukki u r afraid of jurassic park_

 

_[11:02 PM]_  
_to: Hinata Shouyou  
_ _quit calling him tsukki it’s gross. i’m fine leave me alone go to sleep_

 

Shouyou scowls at his phone in the dark, holding it over his head as he lies in bed like that will make Kageyama’s cryptic brooding easier to decipher.

 

 _[11:03 PM]_  
_to: Kageyama_ 🐮  
_y r u mad_

 

_[11:16 PM]_  
_to: Hinata Shouyou  
_ _i’m mad because it’s 11 at night and you keep texting me dumbass_

 

_[11:17 PM]_  
_to: Hinata Shouyou  
_ _i’m turning my phone off_

 

 _[11:18 PM]_  
_to: Kageyama_ 🐮  
凸ಠ益ಠ)凸

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _[12:36 AM]_  
_to: Stingyshima_ 🦎  
_he wants 2 go 2 chuo w u_

 

_[12:38 AM]_  
_to: Unnamed Contact  
_ _What do you hope to achieve by texting me gibberish in the middle of the night?_

 

 _[12:38 AM]_  
_to: Stingyshima_ 🦎  
_y does he want to go where U r going!!!!!?_

 

_[12:39 AM]_  
_to: Unnamed Contact  
_ _Ah, I see._

 

 _[12:40 AM]_  
_to: Stingyshima_ 🦎  
_??? wat does that mean_

 

 _[12:44 AM]_  
_to: Stingyshima_ 🦎  
_WAT DOES IT MEAN_ (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

 

_[12:45 AM]  
_ _You BLOCKED this number._

 

_[12:37 AM]_  
_to: Tsukishima Kei  
_ _oi are you awake_

 

_[12:38 AM]_  
_to: Ousama  
_ _Not you, too_

 

_[12:39 AM]_  
_to: Tsukishima Kei  
_ _?????_

 

_[12:40 AM]_  
_to: Ousama  
_ _Attention: This is not even remotely my problem. Please come back during regular business hours._

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Tsukki says you guys are fighting,” Yamaguchi whispers at lunchtime two weeks later.

Shouyou scowls at his bento. Rice and salmon and pickled ginger, the same as usual, except now that it’s autumn his mom has also been giving him miso soup in a stout pink thermos. If he concentrates, he can imagine that the salmon fillet looks similar enough to Kageyama’s face that it might be cathartic to viciously stab it with his chopsticks.

He and Yamaguchi are sitting in the hallway, which is technically against the rules, but no one has yelled at them yet. It’s raining again, leaving tiny rivulets on the windows, and has been for as long as Kageyama hasn’t been talking to him. Shouyou is already sick of it.

“We’re not fighting,” he says mulishly, kicking a dust mote.

Yamaguchi hums in a way that could not be more blatantly dubious. He’d started growing his hair out in the second year, and now it’s just long enough that he can tie it into a ponytail, which he never passes up to chance to do, something that Shouyou has observed causes Tsukishima almost constant, silent suffering.

Shouyou doesn’t know why. He thinks it looks fine. When he’d gone for his undercut, he had tried to convince Yamaguchi to match with him, but Yamaguchi has staunchly refused, and Shouyou had only forgiven him because he looks cool when he pulls it up with a hair tie between his teeth. Like Asahi, kind of.

“What did he do?” Yamaguchi asks.

Historically, in Shouyou’s long and arduous battle against Kageyama and his feelings about Kageyama, Yamaguchi has been about the only one who ever has the sense to take Shouyou’s side or to even bother asking for his perspective. The gentle concern in his voice now pinches at Shouyou’s chest, and suddenly his eyes are welling up with tears.

“H-He…” Shouyou chews his lip to contain himself, already mortified by how his voice is trembling. “He… he… I don’t know.”

“Is it because he said he wanted to go to Chuo?”

Shouyou tries to consider this rationally. It lands on him like a sword to the neck.

“Why does he have to go where Tsukishima goes?” he blurts out, hiccuping. “Why didn’t he want to go—?”

“Where you’re going?” Yamaguchi finishes, because he must sense that Shouyou won’t have the strength to.

Shouyou crams some rice into his mouth, sniffles, and then nods, once.

“Well,” Yamaguchi says slowly, “I think Kageyama really respects Tsukki, and—”

“He doesn’t respect _me_?!” Shouyou wails, and Yamaguchi scrambles his hands hastily, shaking his head.

“No, no, I don’t mean that! I think—” He sighs and drops his arms to his lap. “I think Kageyama… is just really confused. I mean, I think we all are; it’s...”

When he trails off, Shouyou glances over at him. There’s a rueful cast to the smile on his face.

“It’s going to be really hard not to play together,” he says at last.

Shouyou’s throat strains uncomfortably, about to close up. When his eyes start to burn, he bites his lip as hard as he can, trying to focus on the pain, if only to make it exceed the one rushing into his every rib and limb at that inescapable truth: the next autumn, the next time that the rains come like this, the next time that the sidewalks welcome crimson leaves, they will not be here anymore.

He will not be here anymore.

It had happened to Daichi and Suga and Asahi and Shimizu, and it had happened to Tanaka and Nishinoya and Ennoshita and Narita and Kinoshita, and Shouyou had given no thought at the time to how they had weathered it—this horrible, gaping, unseen wound, expanding as the seasons shifted without their consent. He wishes, now, that he had asked.  

“Shouyou?” Yamaguchi asks. “Are you okay?”

Shouyou sniffles again, loud and sloppy, and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm. He hopes that Kageyama and Tsukishima will be very happy at Chuo, winning all the time without him. They’ll probably forget his name by summer.

“I’m fine,” he says, and forges a smile. Judging by the quiet sigh Yamaguchi releases, he doesn’t buy it, but Shouyou doesn’t care. “Are you going to Chuo, too, Yama?”

Yamaguchi tilts his head to the ceiling, looking thoughtful. He’s balancing in a lotus position, hands tugging intermittently at his knees.

Eventually: “I don’t think so.”

“Eh?!” Shouyou gawks at him. “What? Why not?”

“It isn’t that I don’t want to,” Yamaguchi says, sounding increasingly flustered, “and it isn’t that he doesn’t want me to,” Shouyou could see that from kilometers away, “and it isn’t that I couldn’t,” of course; Yamaguchi’s always been just as smart as Tsukishima, “it’s just that I, uh… felt like… I maybe shouldn’t?”

“Why?” Shouyou asks blankly.

Yamaguchi stiffens, one hand frozen on the back of his neck.

“W-Well, it’s just that, uh…”

“Yamaguchi,” Shouyou says, sobering, “we won’t be able to do this forever, you know? If you want to be with Tsukishima, then—”

“‘B-Be with—?!’” Yamaguchi squeaks, now fully beet-red.

“Yeah!” Shouyou says emphatically. He claps a hand on Yamaguchi’s shoulder and grips it as tightly as he can, leaning urgently forward. “You’ve been together this long, right?! And you’re super strong when you play together, so why… why would you ever—”

It catches up to him, then, who he’s really speaking to.

“Shouyou,” Yamaguchi starts to say, sympathy rushing into his eyes, but Shouyou has already risen to his feet, bento box in one hand.

“Bathroom,” he sputters. “I have to—go to the—”

He’ll apologize to Yamaguchi later for how quickly he bolts, for how he does so without looking back. Yamaguchi will understand; he always does—something Shouyou knows he really shouldn’t take advantage of, but this time, and only this time, he can’t help it.

He doesn’t finish his food.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s just—it’s your grades, Hinata-kun,” Ono-sensei tells him during their one-on-one. Gentle, but firm. It’s still raining, but only a faint drizzle, and it had misted Shouyou’s face on his morning bike ride and made his hair frizz up. “Even if you ace the entrance exam, Chuo’s a very competitive—”

“Juntendo,” Shouyou interrupts her, and then bows his head immediately, fidgeting with his pants leg. “Excuse me. Sorry, sensei. I just meant—Juntendo; do you think I could get into Juntendo?”

She stares at him with an unreadable look on her face, and Shouyou bites the inside of his cheek. After a moment, she sighs briskly, thumbing through the papers and forms on her desk, and then, after scanning one, leans back in her chair, setting a thoughtful finger on her temple.

“Juntendo,” she repeats pensively. “Yes. I think you might have a chance there, Hinata-kun.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Ah, Hinata-kun, a moment,” Takeda calls to him.

Shouyou blinks, passes the two balls he’d been clearing from the floor to Nakanishi, a first-year, and jogs over to meet him. Ukai is out today—Yamaguchi had taken charge and led them in some receiving practice and rotating three-on-threes—but Takeda is there, as he is every day, rain or shine, sickness or health.

Shouyou falters a little when he gets close enough to discern his grave expression.

“Hi, Take-chan,” he greets him. Tanaka’s old nickname for him had been passed down through the ranks until, at last, Shouyou had the privilege of employing it. “What’s up?”

“Ono-sensei tells me that you and Kageyama are going to different universities,” Takeda tells him evenly. “Is that true?”

The door to the supply closet rumbles closed across the gym, echoing so loudly that Shouyou can hardly hear the first-years when they call out good night. Takeda is watching him carefully. Shouyou can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen him this serious.

“U-Um, yes, it’s true,” he says, and then fumbles in, “I think. Sir.”

Takeda lets the words sink into the space between them. Shouyou suddenly can’t keep looking at him, and instead looks at the floor. They had just buffed it with the mops, so it shines. He can sort of discern his silhouette in it, a faint, dark golden color.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Takeda says eventually. “Hinata-kun—”

“Yes?” Shouyou says, blindly hoping, for a moment, that Takeda might impart some of his trademark Takeda Wisdom, and that it will solve all of his problems, from his poor score on the morning’s English pop quiz to the omnipresent ache in his stomach that he hasn’t been able to shake for weeks.

“If you ever need to talk about anything,” Takeda tells him, “you can count on me. You know that.”

Shouyou wants to believe that. He wants to believe that he can count on Takeda to make him smart enough and better enough to walk on the same path as everyone around him seems to have decided to, all of a sudden; he wants to count on Takeda to do all of this, and also to make him preferably less in love with Kageyama Tobio, who does not love him back.

“Right!” he chirps, giving Takeda a thumbs-up even as everything inside of him falls to pieces. “Thanks!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ono-sensei brings up the prospect of cram school, something that Shouyou objects to strenuously, despite her admirable efforts to change his mind. Whatever his academic goals may be, he says, there is no way, not even under penalty of death, that he is quitting volleyball, even for an instant.

(Even though volleyball, these days, has been equivalent to stabbing himself repeatedly in the chest, such is the pleasantness of playing when he and Kageyama are refusing to speak to each other and Kageyama is demonstrating how much of a loss that is for him by constantly leaving early to be tutored by Tsukishima, since that’s now apparently just _happening_.)

If he truly refuses to attend cram school, Ono-sensei tells him sternly, then he must acknowledge the reality that his substandard studying habits will not be enough to get him into any self-respecting school in this or any other prefecture, regardless of his athletic achievements. Whether or not he plans to devote himself to academics in his future, he must at least demonstrate his capacity for self-discipline.

“Find someone to help you prepare,” she suggests. “Set aside time each day to apply yourself to studying only. Every spare moment you have short of sleeping must be used wisely, Hinata-kun. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sensei!” Shouyou declares, staring out the window and thinking about pork buns.

Still, he has to face facts. Tsukishima is out, as he is currently _otherwise occupied_ and Shouyou would rather die than ask him for help ever again anyway; Yamaguchi is way too busy balancing his duties as captain with his own cram schedule, and the era of the ever-helpful Ennoshita has passed. So that leaves—

“Please!” he says to Yachi before club starts on a Friday in November, bowing imploringly, hands clasped in front of him. “Please, Yacchan! You have to help me!”

“E-Eh?” Yachi squeaks.

Her hair is longer now, almost as long as Shimizu’s had been, and she uses her star-shaped scrunchies to tie it up in a ponytail. In their second year, she’d found out she needed glasses—too many late nights in InDesign, she’d said sheepishly when she’d come to practice wearing them—and had chosen a pair of clear plastic ones, bright blue. Today, she’s tied her jersey around her waist, and her pink mechanical pencil is tucked behind her ear.

She clutches her clipboard to her chest when she peers worriedly down at him.

“You don’t have to bow, Hinata,” she says unsurely. “You need help with studying?”

“Yes!” Shouyou replies, still bowing. “I need to get ready for the entrance exams! Sensei says my grades are really bad, and I have no clue what the exams will be like… I know you’re really busy, because you’re studying, too, and—”

He freezes, then straightens up with a jolt. Yachi jumps a little, owl-eyed.

“You’re not going to Chuo, too, are you, Yacchan?!” he yelps.

Yachi flounders for a moment, confusion muddling her face. “Ch-Chuo? The university?”

Shouyou nods vigorously.

“Um, no,” Yachi says, combing her bangs out of her eyes. “I’m actually going to try for Doshisha Women’s College… in Kyoto.”

The name takes a moment to register in Shouyou’s brain. “Ah! Where Shimizu-senpai went?”

If Yachi goes pink, Shouyou doesn’t comment on it. “Yep!”

“That’s awesome!” Shouyou cries. “You’re awesome, Yacchan! Fight!”

Yachi’s smile opens freely on her face, and she clenches her tiny fists, eyes blazing. “Mm! I will! I have seven backup options in case it doesn’t work out—it probably won’t—I mean, statistically—but you never know!” Shouyou is sure Yachi will have no problem, and he is about to very loudly tell her so, but then she continues: “You said you wanted to try Juntendo, right?”

Shouyou nods again. “Right! They’re not as competitive as other places, but…” He withers, arms dangling at his sides, and sticks out his lower lip dejectedly. “They still have kind of a hard entrance exam, and I have to pass the Center Test, too…”

“That’s okay!” Yachi says, patting his shoulder until he rises again. “You can do it, Hinata; you’re sm—uh, hard-working.” She brightens. “Let’s study together!”

Shouyou gasps. “Really?!”

“Of course!” Yachi swings her fist in a rousing _do your best_ motion. “You can help me with my flashcards, too. It’s a win-win!”

Shouyou likes the word “win,” especially when it’s said twice in a row. He leaps up in the air, flinging out his arms and legs excitedly. “Yeah!”

He swears he sees Kageyama watching them in his peripheral, but when he turns his head, Kageyama’s back is to him and he’s hitting a ball against the wall with great concentration. Must’ve imagined it.

Come December, he’s going to Yachi’s almost every night, going so far as to leave practice an hour or even two hours early. That’s usually when Tsukishima and Yamaguchi and Kageyama leave, anyway, so he doesn’t feel as guilty—but it still gnaws at him every time, packing up his things early, calling to the first- and second-years that they’re counting on them to clean things up.

At Yachi’s, he pores over Japanese and English and science, rolling one of the volleyballs she keeps in her room on his head when the thinking gets too hard. She explains things to him patiently, but holds him to rigorous standards, quizzing him often. In exchange for her help, he runs through her immaculate flashcards for her, marveling at how easily she recites math formulas he hadn’t even been aware existed.

She only asks him about Kageyama a few times.

“He can go wherever he wants,” Shouyou snaps, furiously scribbling out notes on polymer reactions to distract himself. “Like I care.”

Yachi has been giving him this look lately like she desperately wants to say something and she’s giving him that look now. He’s torn between pursuing it and running from it. She takes a deep breath through her nose as if to calm herself and the expression vanishes.

“Can you quiz me on English vocab?” she asks him gently, and Shouyou, grateful for the change in topic, eagerly agrees.

“Wh… I don’t know how to pronounce this one,” he says a few minutes later, squinting at Yachi’s thin, tidy handwriting on the pastel pink card. “‘Een… veen?’”

“Ah, ‘invincible!’” Yachi bounces a little, raising a finger. “I know this! It’s, um… too powerful to be defeated! I-N-V-I-N-C-I-B-L-E. ‘Invincible!’”

“Cool…” Shouyou muses, staring at the card in awe. “That’s a super cool word, Yachi-san!”

“Right?!” Yachi beams. “It makes me think of you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“What the _hell_ is the matter with you two?!”

Shouyou winces, swallowing down the lump gathering in his throat that might, if he lets his guard down, turn into tears. He can sense Kageyama tense beside him. He hasn’t heard Ukai this angry in a long time.

They’re standing at attention on the side of the court, and the rest of the team is only vaguely keeping up the charade of continuing to practice through what has already exceeded a scolding and become a rebuke. A few feet away, Yachi is helping a wincing Nakanishi stem a bloody nose, trying to make sure it isn’t broken; she’ll probably have to take him to the infirmary.

It had been an accident. In preparation for the upcoming winter training camp in two weeks, at the end of December, Ukai had been cycling them through three-on-threes to appraise what areas will need the most work. Shouyou had been on a team with Kageyama and Nakanishi, playing against Tsukishima, Hayato, and Sasaki—and he and Kageyama had been sniping at each other all afternoon.

Shouyou’s pettiness had taken the wheel, and he had told Kageyama that he’d signed up to take the Juntendo entrance exam like he was trying to prove something (he was), and Kageyama’s only response had been a brusque, dismissive, “Who cares?!”

One thing had led to another. A mistimed movement, a surge of vengeful spite. Tsukishima had gone to spike a ball tossed by Sasaki, and Shouyou, Kageyama, and Nakanishi had all jumped at once to block it—except Shouyou had slammed into Kageyama from the side, _hard_ , and Kageyama’s elbow had smashed Nakanishi in the face.

“I’m fine, Coach, really—” Nakanishi keeps trying to insist, but Ukai raises a hand to silence him.

His unyielding, furious glare makes Shouyou feel like a bug pinned to a wall, and he can’t imagine Kageyama feels much different.

“Yachi-san,” Ukai growls without looking away from Shouyou and Kageyama.

Yachi gulps and nods wordlessly, setting a hand on Nakanishi’s arm. As she leads him out to go to the infirmary—Takeda joins them at the doorway—Shouyou catches her eye, stomach pinching when he recognizes the disappointment on her face.

“It probably isn’t serious,” Ukai says in a low voice, “ _this time_. But you’ve both been playing recklessly for months. I’d say we’re lucky it took this long for something like this to happen.”

He closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and says, “You know I can’t let you come to the training camp if this is how you’ll behave.”

Shouyou makes a noise of protest and Kageyama’s head jerks up. Ukai puts up his hand again, freezing them both.

“You need to get over this,” Ukai says, eyes shifting to each of them in turn, features strained with displeasure. “Whatever the hell this is. Figure it out.”

“Yes, sir,” they mutter in unison.

“Go home,” Ukai orders them, jerking his head at the door. “Blow off some steam. Don’t come back until you’re the players your team needs. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Shouyou turns swiftly on his heel and stalks toward the exit to change his shoes. He passes Tsukishima as he goes and grits his teeth, refusing to look at his face. Nobody calls after him, not even Yamaguchi, not even Kageyama. But that shouldn’t surprise him.

The winter air is biting, sending goosebumps up his arms and legs. He wrenches the door to the clubroom open and stomps to his locker, then slams his forehead against it, muffling a furious yell with a closed mouth.

The doorknob turns. Shouyou doesn’t move.

Kageyama only lingers a moment before entering, going straight for his own locker, which is, unfortunately, right next to Shouyou’s. He doesn’t speak, but after he puts in his combination, he yanks the lock open with more force than he needs, making the metal door rattle.

Shouyou sets his jaw and tugs off his jersey and shirt, cramming them into the locker without folding them and pulling out his school uniform.

“What the hell did you do that for, dumbass?” Kageyama barks.

Shouyou still refuses to turn to him, going through the motions of changing, pulling his t-shirt on over his head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies, now pulling down his shorts.

“Asshole,” Kageyama spits.

It hits Shouyou like a punch to the face and all but leaves a bruise.

“Go ahead, then,” Shouyou mutters even as he trips into his pants. “I messed up, didn’t I? Isn’t the Great King going to punish me for it? Should I take notes?”

“Hinata,” Kageyama says, and that’s enough to give Shouyou’s wrath pause—his voice is suddenly quieter, almost regretful. “I—can we talk?”

“Talk about _what_?” Shouyou sneers.

“It’s—” It is evident that Kageyama is working very, very hard to keep from yelling at him. In another context, Shouyou might have been touched. “I want to talk to you about what I said. About Chuo.”

If souls are threads, then that is all it takes for Shouyou’s to fray and snap in two. He finally whirls on Kageyama, blood roaring in his ears.

“Chuo, huh?” he shouts. “Chuo? Chuo?”

Kageyama stares at him, uncertainty and regret rising in equal measure on his typically inscrutable face—the terrible, wonderful face that Shouyou would do anything for.

“Fine!” Shouyou snaps, haphazardly stuffing the last of his clothes into his locker and ducking his head so that his burning eyes will not be visible. Nonetheless, his voice starts to break, and knows that it betrays him, even to someone as socially unobservant as Kageyama. “Fine! I guess I’ll see you on TV or whatever! Who cares, right?! Who cares!”

“Hinata—?!” Kageyama exclaims, now shifting from flabbergasted to outright angry.

Shouyou doesn’t give him the chance to finish. Roughly zipping up his coat and shouldering his bag, he storms past Kageyama, crashing into his side as he goes, and out the clubroom door, slamming it behind him.

He arrives at the bike racks in tears, teeth clamped over his lip, hands seized into pulsing fists. It smells like it’s going to snow. His choked breaths cloud intermittently before him before disappearing, even though the soreness they leave behind does not.

“Stupid Kageyama,” he says aloud. He kicks his bicycle, hard, and it rattles in the empty courtyard. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

He isn’t sure who he’s yelling at anymore, but it keeps getting louder and more thoughtless. The words dissolve into nothing more than hoarse, heartbroken sounds as he continues to kick the metal rack, pretending it’s Kageyama, pretending it’s Tsukishima, pretending it’s the gods themselves for inventing something as stupid as growing up.

Eventually, spent, he weakly hits the rack once more for good measure and then goes still, panting. He counts to ten, then breathes out shakily and cleans his face with his sleeve. (His mom’s definitely going to yell at him for getting snot on his jacket later.)

Slowly, he undoes his bike lock, clicking in the combination with numb fingers. He hasn’t changed it since his first year. _0910_. He glares at it, ashamed.

Maybe he should quit volleyball after all, he thinks glumly as he rolls his bike through the school gates. He snuffles, wiping at his raw nose and wincing when it stings, and starts down the steep hill to the mountain highway. What does it matter, anyway? What does any of it matter anymore, if they’re all just going to—?

“Hinata, _wait_ , damn it!”

Shouyou stops walking. The spokes on his bike wheels click quietly into silence. White flecks drift into his vision. It has started to snow.

He doesn’t want to look back. Or maybe he does. He gives it a moment’s thought, just so he can tell himself that he did, before swallowing for courage and twisting his head around.

Kageyama is standing several paces behind him, out of breath, face flushed from exertion and the cold. He must have thrown his parka on quickly on his way out of the clubroom, because it isn’t zipped. Some of it is bunched up because of the strap of his bag. His scarf is undone. And he is giving Shouyou perhaps the most thunderous glare that he has ever seen.

“Wait,” he mumbles.

“Leave me alone,” Shouyou snarls back.

Kageyama bristles at that for a second, but then he’s advancing on Shouyou purposefully, arms ramrod straight at his sides. Shouyou quails a little, hands tightening on his handlebars, but stands his ground.

When Kageyama comes to a halt, he’s close. Closer than he’s come to Shouyou in months. Shouyou notices that his mouth is agape and quickly snaps it shut.

“Hinata,” Kageyama starts.

“I said leave me alone.”

“Hinata,” Kageyama repeats, like everything he wants to say will naturally follow it. He’s staring intensely at Shouyou’s face, his whole posture rigid. “Hinata.”

And then, with a great and frustrated huff, he grabs Shouyou roughly by the sleeve and pulls him into a clumsy embrace.

Shouyou makes a decidedly unattractive noise when their bodies collide, a kind of _wu-gyack_. His hands are torn away from his bicycle, but it catches on the low concrete wall beside them.

Kageyama holds him tightly, one arm at the small of Shouyou’s back and the other hooked around his shoulders. Shouyou’s hands are hovering at either side of Kageyama’s body, paralyzed, and he’s stuttering out nonsense.

Kageyama’s fingers clutch Shouyou’s arm. He turns his head so that his face is buried in Shouyou’s hair, and his breath rushes over it when he exhales, and it warms Shouyo’s whole body.

He says, “I like volleyball more because I get to play it with you.”

In an instant, Shouyou freezes, wide eyes fixed on the faintly falling snow. Kageyama’s words feel like they’ve burrowed deep, deep into his heart—beside cold mornings and mango Calpico and _you, you were amazing_. Coming from Kageyama, such an admission is practically tantamount to a marriage proposal.

“You what?” he croaks, nearly dumbstruck.

“If I didn’t—” Kageyama’s features tense against Shouyou’s temple and Shouyou feels it, because that is how close they are; that is how close Kageyama’s body is to his body, out here in the snow. “If I had to play volleyball without you, I wouldn’t—I don’t think I’d like it. As much.”

“Kageyama,” Shouyou wails, and bursts into tears.

Kageyama is always gruffly telling him not to cry so much, but this time he doesn’t. Shouyou feels a hand hesitantly settle on the crown of his head, then thread its fingers through his hair. All inhibitions gone, he burrows his face furiously into Kageyama’s scarf, forehead pressing against his neck, and wraps his arms around Kageyama’s middle.

Kageyama’s gloved hand tightens in Shouyou’s hair, gripping it just strongly enough that it’s noticeable without being painful. The sensation jolts all the way down Shouyou’s spine.

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” he says with great solemnity. “If you’re going to Juntendo, then that’s where I’m going, too.”

“I don’t want to go to Juntendo,” Shouyou whimpers, clutching Kageyama’s coat. “And I don’t want to go to Chuo either, or Hosei or Tsukuba or Tokai—I want—I don’t want us to play for anyone but Karasuno.”

He shuts his eyes tightly, hating how childish he sounds, hating that all it does is make Kageyama hold him closer. His crying consumes his whole body as it always does, making his shoulders jerk and his legs quaver, aborting every other word with wet, wheezing sobs.

“I don’t want Tsukishima to be my rival. I don’t want Yamaguchi to live far away. I don’t want to only watch your matches on TV. I didn’t want to play without Tanaka-san or Asahi-san or Ennoshita-san or Sugawara-san or Daichi-san or Nishin—” He can’t finish that one. “I only want to keep playing volleyball if we’re all together!”

“Hinata,” Kageyama starts to murmur.

“I know!” Shouyou cries. “I know! I _know_. It’s so stupid and I know and I hate it; it’s the _worst_. I hate this.”

“I’m sorry,” Kageyama says abruptly, his voice hitching. “I’m sorry, Hinata.”

“Wh—” Shouyou sniffles noisily and draws away, craning his neck, and his heart stutters to a halt—Kageyama is about to start crying, too, glistening eyes and blotchy cheeks and a tight, trembling lip. “What are you sorry for?”

“I wanted—” Kageyama chokes wetly, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “W-When we first started playing, we—even though you hated me—we were only strong when we were both on the court, when we used our quick. Everybody said w-we were useless without each other; that you—you were useless without me. And all this time, we’ve been getting better; everyone has, because nobody wants useless players, and now you’re strong, all by yourself, but I—I wanted—”

He lifts his arm up to half-cover his eyes, hiding his face in what Shouyou belatedly realizes is shame.

“I wanted to believe you needed me,” he says through gritted teeth.  

“Of course I need you!” Shouyou blurts out.

As soon as he says it, he claps both hands over his mouth, eyes wide with horror.

Kageyama reels back, bracing both of his hands on Shouyou’s shoulders, dumbstruck. The look on his face would be hilarious, actually, had Shouyou not just flung his heart directly into it with only five words.

“I-I mean,” Shouyou stutters out desperately, fumbling his hands over Kageyama's chest to try to push him back, “no, I don’t; I—”

If asked at any time in the future, he will not be able to remember what he had planned to say. Maybe he hadn’t planned to say anything. What he will remember, with great lucidity, is this: Kageyama’s eyelids hooding, his gaze darkening with something like want and something like devotion. Kageyama’s hands sliding up his neck to tilt his head back, and Kageyama holding his face. Kageyama drawing in a shallow, shuddering breath before leaning in and kissing him, deeply, decisively, with his eyes closed.

Shouyou’s eyes stay open. His hands are still gripping the front of Kageyama’s coat. His toes curl up in his sneakers. He loses all awareness of where the sidewalk is, where the sky is, where _he_ is. His legs, shaking only a moment ago, go completely still.

So this is Kageyama’s mouth, he thinks obliquely. It’s dry, but. It’s warm.

His eyes shudder closed. He stands on his toes, straining for more, sighing contentedly through his nose. It’s warm, warm, warm.

Kageyama’s fingers find his hair, his cheek, his hair again, mapping every part of him. He kisses like he tosses—exact and seamless, knowing instinctively just what Shouyou wants and giving it to him without hesitation.

Shouyou has no concept of such restraint. His want has always been messy. He pulls Kageyama’s lower lip gently between his teeth, shivering when Kageyama makes a noise deep in his throat and drags him closer, until their bodies are crushed together. It’s uncomfortable, but Shouyou doesn’t care.

He’s grinning giddily before he can stop himself. _It’s warm, warm, warm_.

“Of course I never hated you,” he laughs softly against Kageyama’s lips. “Stupid Kageyama.”

Kageyama pulls away. His expression is indescribable.

“You did,” he insists, brow pinching.

Shouyou shakes his head. “Did not!”

He’s already leaning in, stupefied, for more, but Kageyama splays a hand over his face and shoves him back.

“Did, too,” he says.

“You hated _me_!” Shouyou exclaims, muffled. He nuzzles into Kageyama’s hand, too happy to care about his dignity.

“I didn’t,” Kageyama sputters. “I just—I didn’t—”

“Kageyama,” Shouyou says, silencing him.

Kageyama gazes down at him expectantly, still breathing a little hard, eyes glittering in the darkness. Snow has caught in his hair and in his eyelashes, and some flakes are melting on his cheek. Shouyou feels a laugh building in his chest.

“You,” he says, and squashes Kageyama’s face between his hands for emphasis. “You are amazing.”

Kageyama’s eyes go so wide that it’s almost comical. For a moment, Shouyou doubts he recognizes the significance of the words, but then he reaches swiftly up and clasps Shouyou’s wrist with his right hand, and keeps it there.

“I’m not going to Chuo,” he breathes.

Shouyou opens his mouth, but nothing of substance rises to it. He looks up at Kageyama, at Kageyama’s brilliant, impossible face, framed in his hands.

“Whoa, do you actually remember that?” he hears himself say. It must be a survival instinct, anything to conceal the rush of affection threatening to overtake him completely. “Cheesy, Kageyama!”

“What the hell are you talking about?! You remembered it, too! Have you been carrying that around all this time?”

“Th-That’s not important!”

“Like hell it isn’t, moron! You—”

Before Kageyama can continue berating him, Shouyou rises swiftly on the balls of his feet and snatches his mouth up again. He cuffs him around the middle, locking his hands at his back and squeezing.

Kageyama responds instantly and enthusiastically. The tempo is implicit—they draw back, breathe, go in again, without reprieve. The snow starts to fall more heavily. When Shouyou realizes, belatedly, that their teeth are chattering and that he can’t feel his fingers, he forces himself to withdraw, wriggling away when Kageyama’s face follows his on instinct.

“We’re gonna freeze, Kageyama,” he stutters, stuffing his hands into his armpits.

“Okay,” Kageyama says, leaning in again, and Shouyou dances out of reach, laughing.

Kageyama honestly and truly pouts at him. Shouyou has to cover his mouth with one hand to hide his grin.

“Are you going home?” Kageyama demands, cramming his hands churlishly into his pockets and scowling at the snow. “Let me walk you to—home.”

“What? No way!” Shouyou exclaims, even though every still-functioning part of his brain is shouting at him to say yes. “Did you forget where I live? It’s super far; you’d die!”

“I would _not_ ,” Kageyama barks, back to his old self. “Shut up. You’re gonna die too if you try to bike all the way there now.”

“Y-Yeah…” Shouyou mumbles, wincing when a rush of wind blasts a snow flurry into his prickling face. “Probably, huh...”

“So? What should we do?”

Shouyou considers it, blowing warm air onto his hands, hunching his shoulders. He cranes his neck back to look at the sky, eventually closing his eyes against the tumbling snow. It comes to him without much thought at all.

He brings his head back down and meets Kageyama’s dark and dauntless eyes.

“Throw me a toss?” he asks.

And Kageyama smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the real story: on 9/10/2018 Twitter user hawberries_ [drew Kageyama and Hinata sharing one set of gym clothes](https://twitter.com/hawberries_/status/1039144078091345921) and said "it symbolises the fact that there is only one brain cell between them" and then I wrote this. 
> 
> Title from "Constellations" by the Oh Hellos. There isn't a real reason. It's just a very good song. 
> 
> Come say hi on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/brells_)!


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